Letter of the Day | St Catherine North turned into Gaza

By the time this administration is through, the working class residents of St Catherine North will be paupers. For months, we have been suffering under the state of emergency operations with soldiers and police subjecting us to traffic snarls and peering into our vehicles as we try to go about our lives. Our homes have been reduced to mere places to lay our heads at night, as we are forced to leave before daybreak and return after dark just to sleep to fight another day. This cannot be the prime minister's idea of a crime plan - to turn our parish into Iraq!

The SOE has been extended to October and we await the announcement of a further extension, as there's no way they will allow the boys to come out of hiding just in time for Christmas.

That's right. Hiding. We fool ourselves if we believe they have retired. They are simply lying low until this charade blows over. How many of them have been caught?

Unless we really mean to turn St Catherine North into the Gaza, this SOE bit is a mere plaster that will get worn at some point. This is not a sustainable crime plan, sir!

Meanwhile, gas prices are at an all-time high. It's bad enough we have to suffer and pay for it (inclusive of the 40 per cent tax), but then it's burnt out rapidly waiting in line for soldiers to give us the go-ahead to move. How unfair and inconsiderate is that!

Toll taking a toll

As a result, we are forced to add toll prices to our gas bill just so we can get to our destinations before lunchtime. The driver from Spanish Town to Kingston using the toll road both ways is paying at minimum $16,000 per month in fees and a minimum $28,000 in gas. I shudder to calculate the cost for those who are journeying from Old Harbour, where there has been a proliferation of housing developments in recent years.

And then it gets worse, as by the time we are finished struggling to exit the parish, we are met with roadwork from all angles across the Corporate Area. By the time we get to Kingston, those residents are up and running and we continue to crawl to schools and offices. And we repeat this in the evening.

We are working-class people with ambitions of home ownership, buying into St Catherine North communities we can afford. But the Government is killing our dream.